


Question

by Bleck



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Questioning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 13:51:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11163165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bleck/pseuds/Bleck
Summary: Jake has a question for Tobias.





	Question

"Uh...hi, uh, I mean...hey, Jake." Tobias mumbled, looking up at my face and back to the ground really quickly. He was standing off to my side and watching me play a zombie shooter game. We both winced as a zombie popped out and got my character.

"Hey, Tobias. How's it going? Do you wanna play?" I offered the space next to me. Marco was usually there, or standing around and laughing as I died, but wasn't feeling it tonight so it was just me.

"Sure." He said, giving me a brief smile before he put some quarters in. We started up another round and right off the bat, it was clear Tobias was way better than me.

"You're really good." I said after I died and we lost the game.

"Thanks." Tobias said, big smile on his face. I smiled back. 

We weren't friends exactly but it was nice to hang out. It wasn't that I didn't want to be friends with him or anything, I did, but Marco thought he was weird since he sort of lurked. Since I spent most of my time with Marco it made it hard to actually be friends with Tobias. 

"I was going to get something to eat, do you wanna come with?" I asked.

"If that's ok." He said, quickly looking around for some unseen threat. Like bullies would pop out of...oh. He probably really was expecting that.

"Of course it is, I just invited you. It's just you and me." I said, hoping it would help Tobias relax.

Tobias went through so many facial expressions, I stopped being able to recognize them. Shock, fear, and delight were the only things I saw before they blurred together. "Are you alright, Tobias? We don't have to get food if you don't want. Or if you just want to hang out by yourself, I can leave." Maybe it was just me he was worried about. That sucked.

"No! I mean, food sounds nice. I want to go o-get food with you. But I can't. It sounds great, but I don't have any money." Tobias explained, stressed and pulling at his fingers.

"Oh. Well, i'll just pay for you. It's no big deal." I said with a shrug. I wanted to be friends with Tobias but I also really needed to ask him a question and doing it over food seemed like the best way.

"Are you sure? I don't want to be more of a burden." Tobias said. More of a burden? What did that mean?

"You're not a burden, it's just lunch. Every one needs to eat." Especially if they weighed as little as Tobias but I wasn't going to say that. 

We left the arcade and made our way to the food court. Halfway there I had to stop though because Tobias wasn't walking next to me. Instead, he trailed behind like a servant in some medieval movie. I had to actually tell him that he should walk next to me, that yes it was ok and no, I didn't mind. Tobias could be pretty weird. Mostly it was more of a cute weird but sometimes, like right then, it was super bizarre.

"So, did you see the latest Star Trek episode?" He asked when we neared the food court.

"Most of it, yea. It was pretty good. The episode last week was better." 

"Yea." Tobias said though his voice cracked. I could tell that he was just agreeing to agree. Did he think I was going to hit him or something if he disagreed with me about a tv show? 

"Draw anything recently?" I asked.

"What?" He yelped.

Tobias was acting really weird today. "You mentioned you like drawing last time we talked. And I've seen you doodle in notebooks at lunch. Was I not supposed to know that?"

"Um, no, it's fine. Totally cool I mean. I sketched my cat this morning." Tobias said.

"That's cool. I didn't know you had a cat. Was he lying down when you drew him? Or her?" 

"Yea! His name's Dude. He's great. He was laying down for part of it but he stretched and I drew that. The lighting was really good today. I gave him a bath last night so his coat was nice and shiny. I was going to draw him outside but he ran in the woods before I got the chance." Tobias smiled. I could tell he really loved his cat. It was cute.

"Is he ok? Did you get him back?"

"Back from where?"

"You just said he ran into the woods."

"Oh, that's not a problem. He's pretty wild. Dude's been like that since I found him so I'm not really worried." Tobias explained.

"Oh. That's good. Besides Dude, what else do you draw?" 

"Still lifes mostly. Sometimes the beach. But the natural part of the beach, I don't like drawing people on it or traces of people. Like litter or fences and stuff."

"Why?"

"A lot of reasons actually. I guess they're kind of stupid." Tobias said. Going from delighted to miserable in a matter of seconds.

"It's not stupid, I would love to hear what you had to say. If you want to tell me, I mean. You don't have to if you're uncomfortable."

"Are you sure? I don't want to talk your ear off. My uncle is constantly telling me I talk too much about stuff."

"I don't think it's possible for you to talk too much, Tobias. You're a pretty quiet dude. If you have to, consider it repayment for food. Not that you'd ever have to pay me back, you just seem a little uncomfortable with me paying for you." I explained.

"That sounds fair." Tobias said. "I can tell you as we eat then. Or, um, later."

"Cool. So, where do you want to eat?"

"You're paying, you should pick." 

"But you're also eating, Tobias. I don't want to go somewhere you don't eat anything from."

"You should pick." He insisted.

"Burger king." I said, slightly exasperated.

"Ok." He said.

We got in line and I figured out what I actually wanted to eat. There were five people in front of us so it would take a while to order. I didn't envy mall fast food employees. Or regular fast food employees for that matter.

"Do you know what you're going to get?" I asked the shorter boy.

"What're you going to get?" He asked. I couldn't actually get annoyed at that, if someone else was paying for me I wasn't going to order something more expensive than they did either.

"Just a coke and a burger." I said.

"Ok. Just a six piece of chicken nuggets and a coke. Thank you, Jake." Tobias said, almost gravely serious.

"That's all you want?" I asked.

"I'm not super hungry." Tobias said.

"Ok." I said. When we got to the front of the line I ordered for the both of us. I've noticed Tobias was usually too nervous around adults to speak up much. Besides what he had said, I ordered two large fries for us. Just in case he decided he was a bit more hungry.

Tobias chose a spot for us, in the middle of the outer edge of the food court. It was away from as many people as you could get. Which actually helped me since I was a bit nervous about actually having to ask the question I wanted to ask him.

"So, um, Tobias..." I trailed off and took a sip of soda hoping it would calm me down.

He didn't say anything, just waited for me to spit it out.

"Uh, you said you're bisexual before. Right?" I asked like I didn't know for a fact he said he was.

"Yea. Why?" He asked, sounding defensive. He must really get a lot of crap from people. Not about being bisexual though. It's not like he was out, not exactly. He told me after he introduced me to this gay rock band Pansy Divison. Tobias might be out to more people if more people actually paid him any attention. It wasn't like I asked but, as far as I knew, he had only told me.

"Nothing bad. Just, like, how did you know? How'd you figure it out?" I asked. It was a question I didn't want to look up online since the Internet was unreliable. And I certainly wasn't going to the library to check books out on it or ask my parents. Even Tom was out of the question, I didn't know how he would react or if he could even help me. 

"Oh." Tobias said, relaxing. He gave me a small smile. "I sort of always knew. It just took me a while to realize not everyone thought the way I did. Do you think you like girls? Like, could you see yourself with one?"

"I think so. I'm not super sure." I said.

"What about with a boy?" He asked.

"...I think so? Maybe. It's not, like, super weird to imagine myself with a boy or anything."

"Do you think you might be bisexual?" He asked.

"I'm not sure. Maybe? I know that I'm not straight and I wanted to tell someone." I admitted. It felt good to say that out loud. 

"Thank you." Tobias said.

"For what? You helped me."

"For trusting me as someone you could come out to." He said with that gorgeous smile of his.

"I'm glad we're friends." I said, smiling back.

"Me to, Jake."


End file.
